“I’ll go along with the catalytic agent,” she said, “but how does that explain those truck stop people? If we’re dealing with a chemical, whether natural or artificial, how’d those others far from the town catch it?”

Again Mark shrugged. “If any of them pull through, and we can establish any sort of communication with them, maybe we’ll find out they sipped some of the driver’s coffee or something. Back in the late sixties—before your time, I know—the young crazies who thought LSD was the greatest thing since sliced bread often dumped it secretly in cafe coffee urns and the like.”

Sandra smiled slightly at the flattering “before your time” remark, and wished it were so.

“So what do we have?” she asked rhetorically. “We have a catalytic agent that is somehow administered to an entire population within a few-hour period, sends a signal somehow to the brain to have certain vital cells malfunction for a short period three days later, after it’s too long gone for us to trace. A nice chemical agent, but show me a coffee urn, anything, that a whole town uses!” She had a sudden thought. “You checked the municipal water supplies?”

He nodded. “We checked everything, and we’ll do it again. A lot more chemicals than there should be in some cases, but nothing unusual, and certainly nothing to cause this. No, it has to come from something they all touched or consumed. I’m positive of it.”

She slammed the stack of papers down hard on her desk. “Then why haven’t we found it, damn it!” she snapped angrily. “If it’s a chemical it’s common to all the towns, and it should still be there!”

“They’re taking everything apart piece by piece and brick by brick,” he said wearily. “If it’s there, we’ll find it. But I won’t, at least not tonight—er, this morning. I, my dear, am going to go down the hall, enter my office, stretch out on that couch of mine, and if ten more towns go under I will not awaken until at least noon.” He got up slowly, with a groan, and stopped at the door. “Care to join me?” he asked with a leer.